PBS ramps up advocacy as Congress weighs funding cuts: ‘Really hard decisions’ ahead

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Brian Zidian Jr. stayed up until 2 a.m. drafting an email to PBS, asking how he could help the network amid threats to its federal funding.  

"I want PBS to be around forever,” the 21-year-old wrote.  

His email demonstrated an encyclopedic knowledge of PBS KIDS characters.  

Julia, an autistic character introduced to “Sesame Street” in 2017, doesn’t like loud sounds, he wrote. “Carl the Collector,” which premiered in 2024 as the first PBS KIDS show with an autistic main character, loves collecting things. And AJ from “Hero Elementary,” who is also autistic, is passionate about superheroes and gadgets in the same way that Zidian has vast knowledge of animals and cartoons.  

Characters like these mean a lot to Zidian. He connected with them. He saw a bit of himself in them.

“Not a lot of people act or do things the same way like me,” Zidian, who is on the autism spectrum, told Paste BN. 

Zidian, who lives in Ohio, is among those who have answered PBS' call to support the network. Its website features a banner that says “PBS IS IN DANGER OF GOING AWAY” and directs users to Protect My Public Media's website to contact their representatives in Congress.  

More than 2 million messages have been sent to Congress through the platform, Protect My Public Media said, adding that "that number continues to climb."

President Donald Trump’s May 1 executive order called for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting to “cease direct funding" to NPR and PBS. Trump’s order asserted that neither outlet “presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.” 

The order was followed by a June 3 request for Congress to claw back $9.4 billion in federal funding that had already been approved for various purposes. That includes $1.1 billion earmarked for public broadcasting over the next two years. 

The request has to be approved by both chambers of Congress within 45 days in order to become law.  The House Rules Committee held a hearing on the matter on Tuesday, and the chamber is expected to hold a vote this week.

Zidian’s “world is rocked” by the thought of anything happening to his favorite PBS programming, said Dina Zidian, his mother.  

“To most people it’s like, ‘OK, well just find another kid’s show,” she said. “But they’re more in-depth, animated cartoons than your regular ‘Spongebob’ shows. They have more meaning to them.” 

'Really hard decisions' ahead for PBS if funding is slashed, president says

Having viewers share those sentiments with the lawmakers who hold in their hands public broadcasting’s fate is the fight PBS President Paula Kerger has taken up. She called the funding cut a "really serious threat."

“If we’re going to ask for federal funding, we should be able to describe the importance of it,” Kerger told Paste BN in a June 6 interview.  

PBS stations on average receive about 15% of their funding from the federal government, Kerger said. That funding then can get used to cover operations, expenses and pay for programming from PBS.

Some stations may take 5% in federal funds, she said, while others may get nearly half of their operating budget from the federal government.

A financial loss of that size poses an “existential” threat to those stations, Kerger said. 

While PBS has long lobbied for federal funding, the potential to lose already-approved funds is “unknown territory." 

“PBS would have to make really hard decisions about what we could do or not do,” Kerger said.  

Lawmakers disagree on necessity of federal funding for public broadcasting

Both PBS and NPR have sued the Trump administration, arguing the president is unlawfully retaliating against them for their speech. The First Amendment prohibits the government from engaging in viewpoint-based discrimination.  

While the lawsuits could be a lengthy ordeal, the more immediate relief in the view of PBS is for Congress not to pass the recissions bill.  

Though a host of elected officials have long sought to reduce its funds since the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was established in 1967, deep cuts have never come to fruition in the past.

Lawmakers across the political spectrum have supported the service, said Nadine Farid Johnson, policy director of Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute. 

In recent days, they include Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, and U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who penned a May 8 opinion column in support of public broadcasting for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. 

“Not only would a large portion of Alaska communities lose their local programming, but warning systems for natural disasters, power outages, boil water advisories and other alerts would be severely hampered,” Murkowski wrote. “What may seem like a frivolous expense to some has proven to be an invaluable resource that saves lives in Alaska."

A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers also said parts of the country, particularly remote or rural communities, would “struggle to receive timely, reliable local news and educational content” with the funding cuts in a March 26 letter to the Federal Communications Commission.   

But Trump also has allies in his fight to defund public broadcasting.  

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, on June 11 introduced the "Free Americans from Ideological Reporting (FAIR) Act," which would cut off federal funding for both NPR and PBS. Blackburn said the act would prevent Americans from being "forced to subsidize media that disparages conservatives and does the left's bidding."

Other lawmakers in the same camp include House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, who has said he “would like to” cut PBS funding, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, R-Georgia, who has referred to both PBS and NPR as “radical left-wing echo chambers.”  

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, elements of which Trump has implemented since his inauguration, also calls to stop supporting public broadcasting with taxpayer funds. It similarly mentions a perceived liberal bias and says defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would not be a death blow to the outlets.  

“The membership model that the CPB uses, along with the funding from corporations and foundations that it also receives, would allow these broadcasters to continue to thrive,” Heritage Foundation fellow Mike Gonzalez wrote in the document.  

Though PBS has loyal supporters like Zidian working to save their favorite programming, the network's future vitality may ultimately be in Congress’ hands. 

“It remains to be seen what impact those (efforts) will have,” Farid Johnson said.  

BrieAnna Frank is a First Amendment Reporting Fellow at Paste BN. Reach her at bjfrank@usatoday.com.

Paste BN's coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.